Canada’s Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps earned silver in the pairs event at the figure skating Grand Prix de France on Saturday.
The duo finished with a total score of 197.66 after getting 123.40 in the free skate.
Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps, the 2024 world champions, got 73.26 in the short program on Friday.
Canadian pair Stellato-Dudek, Deschamps claim silver at Grand Prix de France
World champions Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara of Japan won the pairs event by a vast 21-point margin despite some errors by Miura on the first jump combination of their free skate. They scored 219.15 in total.
Hungary’s Maria Pavlova and Alexei Sviatchenko took bronze with 192.76.
Meanwhile, Canadian ice dancers Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac placed sixth in the rhythm dance.
The duo got a score of 73.75 in the event, with the free dance taking place Sunday.
Great Britain’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson are the leaders at 84.38 going into the second segment of the ice dance competition.
Lithuania’s Allison Reed and Saulius Ambrulevicius are in second (80.98) and France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron (78.00) in third.
Fournier Beaudry, from Montreal, teamed up with two-time Olympic medallist Cizeron in January. Her previous partner, Nikolaj Sorensen, was handed a six-year suspension for sexual maltreatment in October 2024, but an arbitrator overturned the suspension in June.
Japan’s Miura, Kihara win pairs title at Grand Prix de France
World champion figure skater Ilia Malinin of the United States made a statement by taking a near 10-point lead in the short program in his first Grand Prix event of the season ahead of the Winter Olympics.
The skater nicknamed the “quad god” landed a quadruple flip and a quadruple lutz-triple toeloop combination, plus a backflip as an exclamation point toward the end of his skate in the Grand Prix de France on Saturday.
Malinin scored 105.22 points for a commanding lead over Nika Egadze of Georgia on 95.67 ahead of Sunday’s free skate, with Kao Miura of Japan third on 87.25.
American Malinin dominates men’s short program at Grand Prix de France
France’s top skater Adam Siao Him Fa has won his home Grand Prix three years in a row but that streak seems set to end after he was fifth in the short program.
U.S. skater Maxim Naumov was cheered by the crowd as he placed ninth. This is his first Grand Prix since both of his parents, both world champion skaters, died when their plane crashed into a military helicopter on approach to Washington, D.C., in January.
Ami Nakai produced a big upset to beat three-time world champion Kaori Sakamoto and lead a Japanese women’s podium sweep.
Japan’s Nakai captures her 1st career victory at senior Grand Prix skating event
Competing in her first senior Grand Prix, Nakai put both hands to her mouth in shock at seeing her score of 149.08 in the free skate — a personal best by over 11 points — and 227.08 overall.
Skating to “What a Wonderful World,” Nakai was the only skater to attempt a triple axel jump, even if she put a hand down to steady herself on the landing.
“Never did I think that I would be able to win, but I won this debut Grand Prix event, so I’m just elated,” Nakai, previously best known for a bronze at the 2023 world junior championships, said through an interpreter.
Sakamoto was second on 224.23 after rare errors on spins and Rion Sumiyoshi took the bronze with 216.06, overtaking Isabeau Levito of the United States in the free skate.
The Grand Prix de France is the first of six regular season Grand Prix events building to a final in December. The series is a key competitive test for top-level skaters eyeing medals at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in February.
For full streaming details for the Grand Prix of France, check out the CBC Sports broadcast schedule.
